The King Slayer Part 17

That is when the fire goes out.

The room falls dark. And the air around me, once warm and still, drops by degrees and begins to swirl, great gusts of wind from nowhere whipping my hair around my shoulders, into my face, flaring my skirts around my knees. A cloud of breath snakes from my mouth, and I feel it against my cheek: the first flake of snow that within moments turns to a blizzard.

My dress freezes in place, the skirt ballooned around my knees in statuesque att.i.tude. My hair freezes, too, strands sticking to my cheeks and my lips and eyelids that feel at once numb and sharp and heavy. The wind howls around my ears, bringing with it still more snow; the presence chamber has become a winter wasteland.

Blackwell appears before me, untouched by the cold, as if it exists for me only-does it exist for me only?-his coat and his face and his skin bear not a trace of it. I will myself to move. To pull away, to hold fast to the sword, to raise it and to lay it into him, to finish what I set out to do. But my commands fall on the deaf ears of my immobile body. Blackwell reaches forward and with a twist and a tear of metal against hardened skin, he pries the Azoth from my hand. I'm frozen solid as winter: I can do nothing but watch it go.

At once, the snow and the storm disappear, swirling upward into the pale plaster ceiling and into nothingness, a terrible silence descending on the room. Just the sound of Blackwell's strange, whistled breath, the dawn chorus of birds in the eaves outside the window.

"Take her away."

Away: to Greenwich Tower. Where I am to be held until Blackwell can a.s.semble his retinue of alchemists in preparation for the spell. When he will take the Azoth and run me through with it, when he expects my stigma, his power, to be absorbed by the blade. For the power of both to be transferred into him, making him whole before uniting those opposites, transcending them, allowing him to live forever.

These are the words he uses to describe what will occur next. I use but one word, simple but final.

Execution.

I sit shackled in a wherry, floating down the murky Severn River. The waters are quiet at this hour, save for a few idling ships not wanting to risk getting moored in the morning's low tide. They wait in the middle, still as a raft of mallards. I find myself watching them, allowing myself to hope, just for a moment, that one of them is Peter's. A galley, maybe, with a hundred rowers at the helm to chase us down, pull up alongside us and whisk me away, saving me again the way he saved me before. But as we drift on by and there are no shouts, no anchors pulled, no row men and no pirates, I know that I am on my own.

Ahead, Upminster Bridge. Two dozen brick archways spanning the length of the water, topped by rows of leaning shops and taverns and lodging, some nearly four stories high. Like the waters, the bridge is nearly empty now, too early still for buildings to open their doors. But by noon, it will be madness: the pathway clogged with pedestrians and carts and carriages, stinking of mud and filth and people and waste. Caleb and I attempted to pa.s.s, just once; it took us an hour to get halfway. That was when he suggested we take to the river and swim our way across.

I wonder if he still remembers. How he jumped onto the low wall and stood teetering on the edge, arms wide as if he were flying, laughing. I laughed, too, because it didn't matter if he fell. He thought nothing could touch him then; we all did.

I glance at him, sitting behind me. I half expect to find his muted gray eyes on me, watching me the way Schuyler does when he's listening to me, hearing my every thought. Instead, he's looking above me. I turn to follow his gaze, and I see it: them. A dozen heads impaled on a dozen pikes, set on top of the southern gatehouse, their faces frozen in a mask of defiance, fat carrion crows with their black legs tangled in b.l.o.o.d.y hair and Keagan's shredded pamphlets, pecking away at what's left: skin, sinew, eyeb.a.l.l.s. I don't recognize them but that doesn't matter; they are traitors and this is what happens to traitors. If I do not find a way out, it is what will happen to me.

Greenwich Tower looms into view, casting a long, dark shadow, black with ever-present mold. Beyond that, the castle itself, four flag-topped spires marking each corner. The iron gate slides open as we approach, as though it were expecting us. The boat slips through and b.u.mps against the bottom of a set of stone steps, the same steps I climbed the night of the masque, the night John danced with me, the night he first kissed me.

Today no footmen take invitations, no roses bloom in the gardens, no guests arrive dressed in finery or wearing masks. It's only Caleb and me standing at the top of the watergate, staring across the landing, across the now-bleak landscape to the park beyond. Guards in black teem from a nearby tower and make their way toward us, their footsteps crunching in the gravel. They pull me from Caleb's grasp, make a show of checking my bindings around my arms, my feet.

While the Prayer on the Eve of Battle continues to run through my head, I tick through my options of escape.

I think of unshackling myself, but I can't without my stigma: I don't have the strength to break through the iron on my own. I spy a rock, two, scattered along the path. Consider s.n.a.t.c.hing one up, smashing the guards with it before smashing my chains, then reject the idea immediately. It would take too long and be too loud.

I could try to escape the grounds. But how? I could probably outmaneuver the guards; they've never been much of a challenge. Then what? The river? I could scale the wall; even chained, I could still manage that. I'd have minutes-ten at most-before the other guards were alerted to my absence. It would be better to hide somewhere on the grounds, wait for cover of darkness to sneak away. But by then they'd have every guard, revenant, and Knight of the Anglian Royal Empire after me. And they would find me.

Of course, then there's Caleb. He would stop me before I could take the first step in any one of these plans. But I've got to figure out something. Because when Blackwell comes for me, when he tries to retrieve my stigma and discovers I don't have it, he will turn Caleb on me. He will turn Marcus and Linus on me, he will force me to tell him what happened to it. I will never tell him; I swear it on my life. But it is not only my life I am concerned about.

We pa.s.s the guards' station, the servants' quarters, and the lieutenants' lodgings, built back when Greenwich Tower was a defensive castle only. They could almost be mistaken for Upminster town homes: white plaster and dark-timbered facades, thatched roofs, rough-hewn wood doors painted in a charming shade of robin's-egg blue.

We reach the house at the end. I've never been inside before-I had no reason to be-but unlike the others, this one is no lodging: I know this by the heavy, barred door. The guards unlock it, and Caleb pushes me inside and up a set of circular winding stairs, through another and yet another locked, barred door into what looks like a holding room. It's strangely large, bright, and clean: high walls inset with leaded gla.s.s windows, fresh rushes strewn along the floor, a wide wood bench along one wall, and a fireplace along the other, though it's unlit.

The door shuts on me; the lock clicks into place. The guards turn and leave. Only Caleb remains: standing at the door, hands wrapped around the bars, watching me. It's a familiar scene, so reminiscent of the time I stood behind bars at Fleet, when I still believed in him, trusted him; when I still believed we could get through anything as long as we were together.

I start to turn away when Caleb's strange, murky voice breaks the silence.

"I have to tell him everything now," he says. "Everything he asks. I have to do everything he demands."

This is typical. Revenants are always beholden to the witch or wizard who returned them from the grave. The magic that binds them together requires it. I don't know why he's telling me this, but perhaps there's a way I can use it to my advantage.

"Yes," I say cautiously. "You will have to do everything he demands as long as he is alive. And once he has my stigma, he will always be alive."

"Don't manipulate me." Caleb's words turn quick, sharp; maybe I'm imagining it but I think I see a flash of blue behind his cloudy gray eyes, but then it's gone.

I nod, acknowledging the accusation. "Even so, it's the truth. You know it is."

He says nothing, at first. Then: "You don't know what it's like." His voice is quiet, hesitant; a whispered secret in a barred confessional. "I feel nothing. I know everything. I exist, yet I do not. I am no one but who he tells me to be. I want to escape. I don't know how to escape. I don't-" Caleb stops himself. "I have to go. He needs me." He releases the bars and backs away. "I would not," he adds, "turn your back."

"What?"

Caleb shifts out of sight. And in his place Marcus appears: black cloak, black hair, those gray eyes black with hate and want for revenge.

I SPEND THE NEXT FOUR nights in a cold, dark, tomblike room in the presence of the dead.

I don't sleep for long; I don't dare. Instead I sit perched on the edge of the bench, pinching myself to stay awake, succ.u.mbing to five-, ten-minute s.n.a.t.c.hes of rest when I can't. Every waking moment is devoted to the Prayer on the Eve of Battle, a liturgy on a loop, keeping Marcus from my thoughts. He finds them anyway-not all of them but some-taunting me with carefully buried memories of childhood and of training, of my time spent with Malcolm, my parents' deaths and Caleb's, whispered in his loamy, rotting voice.

Not once does he mention John.

Not once do I turn my back.

I don't have to wonder why Marcus was given the job of guarding me. Caleb could have kept me from escaping just as well, but he would not have kept me awake for the purpose of unhinging me. He would not have stared at me all through the night, unblinking, seeing everything. Almost everything.

The only thing left to wonder is what will happen.

Days pa.s.s slowly, murky light breaking through quilted clouds each morning, escaping on dust motes through leaded gla.s.s each evening. I'm light-headed with exhaustion, my limbs and eyelids heavy with vigilance. The only sounds in the room are Marcus and his malignant mutterings, me and my mitigating prayer.

In the tower outside, bells chime out the hours. Then, on the fifth chime of the fifth day, Marcus finally stops speaking. Rises to his feet. I still don't move, rooted to the bench with manifest fear, watching how he c.o.c.ks his head, a lupine gesture, toward the window. Listening to something I can't hear. Then he turns to me, a slow, sly grin crossing his face.

Today is the day.

I have to escape.

I don't know what to do.

I hear the echo of a clank, a key in an iron lock, the creaking of a door hinge. Footsteps on a stone staircase. Guards appear at the window of my door then, two of the same men that escorted me here. They let themselves in. It's not difficult to spot the caution on their faces; I don't know if it's directed toward me or toward Marcus.

The guards don't give an order, they don't have to: Marcus lurches for me, rips me off my spot on the bench. I struggle against him, against the chains still bound around my ankles and wrists; useless. Then, with Marcus on one side of me and the guards on the other, they march me out the door. My heart taps fast against my rib cage. I've got to do something, and time is running out.

We wind down the stairs until we reach the door at the bottom. One guard pulls out a key and unlocks it, the other holds it wide for Marcus to step through, keeping a wide berth. For a moment, just a moment, I'm left alone with them.

But a moment is all I need.

I swipe my hand through my hair, s.n.a.t.c.h the hairpin from the knot at the nape of my neck, still tucked there from nearly a week before. Jam it into the locks in my bindings, feel them catch, hear them snap open. Marcus hears it, or senses it; he spins around just as I reach forward and slam the door shut, jamming the bolt into place.

The guards advance. I throw my elbow up and back, hard, catching one in the nose. It cracks, breaks; blood spurts onto the floor as he bends over, groaning. I take him by the back of the head and slam it into my knee; he drops to the ground. The other guard turns to run, but he's not fast enough. I grab his arm, whirl him around, my fist is at his mouth before he can utter a sound. He joins the other guard on the floor in a heap.

Marcus batters himself against the door like an enraged wild animal.

I run like h.e.l.l.

Up the twisting stairs, back to my cell again. Throw myself through the door, slam it shut, and lock it, yanking more pins from my hair and cramming them into the latch so it can't be opened from the other side.

I've got seconds, if that, before Marcus escapes and reaches me. I s.n.a.t.c.h the ap.r.o.n from my soiled woolen dress, wrap it around my fist as I've done before, and smash it through the window that overlooks the back of the lodging house, the opposite side from where Marcus still hammers on the door. Shards of gla.s.s fall from the frame and crackle to the floor. I move around them carefully in my worn leather slippers; I cannot cut myself, I cannot bleed.

I step onto the narrow window ledge, peer into the dawn and the darkness below. I don't know what might be down there; I didn't get a chance to scout it before, not with Marcus watching my every move. Likely it's a stone path. But what if it's an iron gate? A pitched roof? I could impale myself, I could hit the heavy, shale slats and knock myself unconscious; roll to the ground and break a leg, condemning myself to capture.

I'm willing to take the chance.

I don't get it.

The door to my cell explodes open, and Marcus is through it like a battering ram. He's fast-I cannot get used to his speed-and he's on me, fisting the collar of my dress with an iron, unforgiving hand. I'm yanked from the ledge, hard, thrown to the floor. I land on my stomach, the wind knocked out of me. I scramble to my back but immediately wish I hadn't. To look him in the face is to be terrified: He looks furious, vengeful, and worst of all, amused.

He grabs me, grasps my head between both palms, and begins to squeeze. The pressure of it lifts me off my feet; it splinters my vision, at once going white, then red, then black. He's going to crush my skull. He's going to kill me with his bare hands. He mutters obscenities at me; his breath is in my face and it is not human. It is dark and black and oily; it smells of dirt and death and decay.

"Marcus." Caleb's voice breaks into my screams. He stands at the door, hands curled into fists, either in anger or restraint. "Release her."

Marcus starts like a scolded dog, pulling his hands from my head. I don't expect it and I slump in a heap to the floor, my head knocking against the stone.

"Now go." Caleb points to the door, blown open on its hinges. "I'll have to tell him of this. You know what will happen when he hears."

"I was told to prevent her escaping," Marcus says. "Using whatever means necessary. That is what I did."

"Make your excuses to him," Caleb replies. "I don't have the time or the use for them."

Marcus glares first at Caleb, then at me before stalking from the room. I don't know what to say to him: Thank him for stopping Marcus from killing me? Rail against him for it? Because wherever he's taking me, it's no better than where I am now, and the fate is the same.

But I don't get to decide because in an instant Caleb is beside me, pulling me to my feet. In the s.p.a.ce between one breath and another my wrists are bound once more, a blindfold strapped over my eyes. He marches me back down the stairs, no chance of escaping this time.

Outside, the sound of gulls wheeling overhead, the gust of cool wind on my face, and the brackish scent of the Severn River are my only sensations. I begin to struggle, but I know it's no use and I stop. Whatever strength I have left for whatever happens next, I'm going to need it.

The scent and the damp, velvety feel of gra.s.s give way to the crunch of gravel; the gravel gives way to pavers, then the dank smell and sudden coolness of a tunnel. I try to sort out where he's leading me. It could be any number of places, none of them good: This is Greenwich Tower, after all.

A slight stumble as we cross a threshold, the creak of a door, then the sensation of falling. Stairs. They go on and on. I've counted sixty, yet we keep going, deep beneath the Tower, into the ground. Into the earth.

The earth.

I begin to struggle again, bucking and twisting against his grasp. But it's as though I'm wrestling with a stone pillar. My skin chafes and burns, and I wind up nowhere.

Finally, we reach the bottom of the staircase, hitting solid floor. I start a little at the cold smoothness of it, at the ringing echo of our footsteps.

"Where am I?" I don't bother to hide my fear; Caleb knows it anyway. "What is this place?"

Instead of his reply, there's a low rumble of chuckles in the room, not from just one man but from many. It makes the hair on my neck stand on end, the kick of buried fear taking flight in my chest. Caleb's hand fumbles to the back of my head, pulls away my blindfold.

I'm in a small circular room that I've not seen before. The floor underfoot is marble, the same that lines the walls and the ceilings. Brown, veined with white; an elegant tomb. Glittering stones inset into the floor form a star with eight points, marking the cardinal and intercardinal directions. In the middle, a table. Narrow, long, shining wood.

It's a ritual room.

I've seen them before, rudimentary versions of this. Dirt or brick walls, never marble. Twigs or rocks to mark the directions, never inlaid with precious gems. Rough-hewn candles made of tallow and stinking of fat instead of elegant oil lamps, cut gla.s.s hung from bra.s.s brackets along the walls.

Eight men stand in a circle around the edge of the room, surrounding me. I spin around, looking at each of them in turn. They're cloaked and hooded, so I can't see their faces or tell who they are. They all look the same. But I know one of them by his height, his presence; I know him by the sword at his side, emeralds on the hilt glittering like a pulse.

I know it's useless, but I run anyway. Spin on my heel and sprint toward the door that Caleb just led me through, the door that not sixty seconds ago was there.

Only now it's gone.

At once, the eight men converge on me. I duck past one, knock into another. Jam into one with my shoulders, get past him only to run into another. I kick him, my hands useless and bound before me.

Someone grabs me from behind. I buck and I twist, gnashing at his arms, his hands, my teeth sinking into his flesh and drawing blood. He thanks me for it with a slap to my face, hard enough to rattle bones.

They throw me onto the table, faceup. Someone procures a length of rope and wraps it around me, around the table, binding me to it. I'm completely immobile. I twist my head around, side to side, watching as the men produce candles from beneath their cloaks, lighting them from the oil lamps before setting them along the edge of the eight-pointed star. A small wooden bowl of salt is set on the cardinal point north. A larger candle, also lit, set on the point south. A bundle of herbs east, a chalice of water west. Four directions, four elements, four virtues, four phases of time, all leading to a single, final end.

There's a rustle, then a squawking sound. A rattle of bars. A tall, hooded man steps forward; in his hands is a small black cage holding a huge black raven. He pulls out the bird as Blackwell holds up the Azoth. There's a flash of green, a caw, a rustle-then silence. A dripping noise, the scent of iron, a wet thud as the dead bird is thrown into the center of the star. A sacrifice.

It all happens fast now. Blood smeared on the wall, shapes and figures I can't decipher. Herbs held over the flames, catching fire, then quickly put out, still smoking, the scents mingling with the blood. The swish of robes. All the while murmuring, chanting, an incantation.

I twist against the rope, my head whipping from side to side, when suddenly the room disappears. No marble, no glittering compa.s.s, no candles. No dead raven and no hooded men. Only a dark room. A hole, a tomb. No way in, no way out.

The room flickers back to marble, then back to dark. Over and over again. The chanting grows louder, drowning out my shouts that give way to my screams. Marble, dirt. Men, no men. Light, no light. Faster, faster.

Blackwell appears before me then, the Azoth held high. Something flares inside me at the sight of it, the heat and pull and desire of the curse.

My pulse thunders now.

A swish of air as the blade is lifted. I take a breath, likely my last, wait for the point to impale me, for me to bleed onto this table, to die; the only solace is knowing that if I do, Blackwell will never get what he wants.

He pauses. I think, maybe, wildly, that the blade recognizes me, knows who held it these last weeks, refuses to turn against me. But the Azoth has no loyalty. It would just as soon kill me as anyone else, as long as it kills someone.

"What is this?" Blackwell's voice in my ear; his palm to my head, twisting it this way and that. "And this?"

I don't answer, because I don't know what he's asking. Then he answers for me.

"Bruises." The room falls silent, all chanting stopped. "On your face. Neck. How, Elizabeth, do you have bruises?"

I go still. Witch hunters do not get bruises. That is, witch hunters still protected by their stigmas do not bruise. All the care I took not to be cut, the care I took not to allow my secret to leak, now undone by the smallest of things: the imprint of Marcus's palms against my face as he tried to squeeze the life out of me.

"Where is your stigma?" Blackwell leans forward. Presses the tip of the Azoth against my cheek; it's still dripping with raven's blood. "What have you done with it?"

"I'll never tell you." Somehow I find the courage to look into his ruined face, one last defiance. "I will never tell you what happened to it."

This, to him, is no threat. He simply looks to Caleb, who steps toward me, hood lowered and eyes narrowed. He will try to read me, he will burrow into my head and he will try to find the answer to Blackwell's question. Once again I recite Malcolm's prayer, over and over, I fill every crevice of every thought with it; I will not let him in.

After a moment, Caleb shakes his head.

"There are other ways to retrieve this information." A smile crosses Blackwell's split face but it shouldn't: He does not know the lengths I will go to in order to keep it from him. He jerks his head at his men. "Take her."

The same tall, hooded figure who held the caged bird now clamps his hand around my wrist; unseen hands fumble with the rope. I stop my prayer long enough to direct one to Caleb to end me first, before they do. Blackwell has many avenues of making me talk; roads littered with the dungeon and the rack, eye gouging and tongue cutting, split knees and sawed limbs and irons and screams.

But Caleb remains still, mute to my pleas.